Introduction
1.5 Operational Definitions
Curriculum: Curriculum refers to the totality of content to be taught and aims to be realised within the school or educational system. However, in the USA, 'curriculum' tends to be synonymous with 'syllabus' in the British sense. Curriculum should not be seen simply as a kind of super syllabus, since there is a qualitative difference between the two. Curriculum can be viewed as the programme of activities. It can be defined as all the learning, which is planned and guided by the school, whether it is carried on in groups or individually, inside or outside the institution. “Curriculum” refers either to all of the courses offered by an educational institution or to the courses offered in a specific programme. Curriculum is a very general concept, which involves consideration of the whole complex of philosophical, social and administrative factors, which contribute to the planning of an educational programme.
Syllabus: In a distinction that is commonly used in Britain, 'syllabus' refers to the content or subject matter of an individual subject. A syllabus is an outline of a specific course prepared by the instructor. It is a framework of language teaching programme. It includes the topics to be covered, their order, often the required and suggested reading material, and any other relevant information. Syllabus refers to that sub part of curriculum which is concerned with a specification of what units will be taught (as distinct from how they will be taught, which is a matter of methodology).
ESL: English is used as an institutional language In ESL (English as a second language) region. English plays a crucial role in offices, educational institutions and other spheres of society. English is used as a second language in almost all the former British colonies. In ESL countries, English has acquired an important status in language policy.
English is taught with utmost priority at schools, colleges and universities. English is enjoying the status of functional language in many countries of the world.
EFL: English is basically considered prestigious in EFL (English as a foreign language) situation. In most cases, foreign language is taught through instructions. People mainly learn it for occupational and educational purpose and recreation. People learn it either for communication with foreigners or for reading books and other materials.
Grammar Translation Method (GTM): Grammar Translation Method (GMT) of foreign language teaching is one of the most traditional methods that developed in late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The Classical Method dominated for centuries in language teaching history and is still dominating for teaching language, and literature of the target language. Richards and Rodgers (2001) mention some important features of the Grammar Translation Method. The goal of foreign language study in GTM is to learn a language in order to read its literature or in order to benefit from the mental discipline and intellectual development that result from foreign language study. In GTM, reading and writing skills are emphasized; listening and speaking receive little or no attention.
Materials mostly comprise literary extracts and classical texts. Vocabulary is based on the reading texts and taught through translation, often in the form of bilingual wordlists, memorisation and dictionary study. The Sentence is the basic unit of teaching and language practice. Accuracy of grammar and translation is emphasized. The teacher explains grammar rules and then gives examples. Instruction often focuses on the form and variety of words rather than on communicative use of the rules. Classes are taught in the mother tongue, with little active use of the target language. In GTM, the teacher and learners maintain traditional roles of knowledge transmitter and knowledge receiver. The teacher is the authority in the classroom while students simply do what they are asked to do.
Communicative Language Teaching (CLT): The idea of CLT originated in the U.K. in the early 70s. Linguists began to view language not as interlocking sets of grammatical, lexical and phonological rules only, but as a means of expressing meaning and communication. Communicative Language Teaching is a learner-centred method that believes in learning to communicate through communication; it encourages practice as a way of developing communicative skills. It focuses on the needs of learners, and attempts to define their needs. It puts emphasis on the content of the activity, rather than on overt language learning. It shows encouragement and tolerance of language variation in the classroom, even to the extent of mixing mother tongue and target language use. Errors are considered a natural part of the process of language acquisition. It emphasizes the use of techniques which encourage student participation in natural environment –activities such as group and pair work, simulation, information-gap exercises and the like. It argues for the presentation of language items in contexts of typical use rather than in isolation. CLT advocates for the use of materials which are either authentic (i.e. natural language, not
specially designed for language teaching), or simulate authenticity. A major aspect of CLT is its functional view of language and language learning, which defines language learning as “learning by doing” or “the experience approach”. Language has to be studied in the broader sociocultural context of its use, which includes participants, their behaviour and beliefs, the objects of linguistic discussion, and word choice. The Communicative approach is based on the view that different learners may have different ideas, beliefs and attitudes about the nature of the target language and language learning.
Writing sub-skills: In this research writing sub-skills refer to content, style, grammar, coherence, cohesion, vocabulary and mechanics.
Content: Content of a writing task includes response to the topic, relevance to the topic/task, communication, development of topic and thematic content, number and range of ideas and arguments, originality of ideas, depth of analysis and knowledge of the subject.
Style: Style refers to the way how figures of speech are being used, point of view of the writer, attitude and voice of the writer, appropriacy of tone and register, awareness of purpose and appropriate format.
Organisation/Coherence: Organisation means accuracy of paragraphing, clarity of overall organisation, development of ideas, overall physical and conceptual structure, introduction, and conclusion.
Cohesion/Cohesive devices: Cohesion indicates accurate use of conjunctions and interjections, accurate use of pronoun and pronoun referents, using the right connective for the level of formality, range of connectives, linking ideas within and between sentences.
Grammar: Grammar refers to sentence construction, use of tenses, use of subject verb agreement, use of plurals, use of articles and prepositions, complexity of sentence structure, range in the use of structure and sentence construction and level of formality.
Vocabulary: In this thesis, vocabulary refers to the correct and appropriate use of words, range (originality, variety and choice of words) and use of lexical cohesion.
Mechanics: It encompasses accuracy of conventions of punctuation, exact use of punctuation in the appropriate places, accuracy of spelling and adherence to either British or American style, accuracy of conventions of capitalization, italics, inverted comma, abbreviations, numerals, dates and intelligibility of handwriting.
Communicative competence: Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) sets
‘communicative competence’ as the goal of language teaching and learning. In other words, CLT aims at facilitating the development of communicative competence in the target language. It focuses on the development of the skills of speaking fluently, correctly and appropriately in real-life situations, of listening to genuine real-life speech or conversation, of writing for authentic communicative purposes, and of reading ‘authentic’
texts in the target language. In simple words, communicative competence refers the ability to use the linguistic system effectively and appropriately.
Strategy: In this research, the term ‘strategy’ comprises teaching techniques as well as ways of using writing aspects. Teaching techniques include technical aids and materials, grouping of students, content of language practice, monitoring, model presentation, mode of error correction, teacher-student interaction, feedback etc. Writing aspects refer to syntax (sentence structure), grammar, mechanics (handwriting, spelling and so on), organization (paragraphing, cohesion), word choice, purpose, audience and content, integrated in writing task.
Writing Activities: Traditionally, writing activities are confined to controlled sentence construction, free composition, and the homework function. However, in this research writing activities mean all the activities related to writing skill development in the English language class.
Product Approach: Product approach means that the interest is in the end product. When writing is finally completed, the evaluation is made, without any interference on the part of the teachers.
Process Approach: In the process approach, attention is paid to the various stages that a piece of writing goes through. A process approach aims to get to the heart of
various skills that should be employed while writing. There are some stages in the process writing that include drafting, reviewing, focusing, generating ideas and evaluation. These stages obviously include some activities as well.
Genre Approach: A genre approach is especially appropriate for students of English for specific purposes. Students who are writing within a certain genre need to have knowledge of the topic, the conventions and the style of genre, and the context in which their writing will be read.
Writing Tasks: Writing tasks include book report, book review, instruction sheet, narrative, personal story, describing a view, describing places, describing people, answering a letter, job application, news report, expressing liking and disliking etc.
Testing: In this research ‘testing’ and ‘evaluation’ play an important role. Test is always an inseparable part of teaching learning process. Test is used mainly to assess the achievement of the learners and the success of teaching strategies as well. Validity, reliability and practicality are the three most important characteristics of testing. Test is vital for determining the learner’s prociency in the target language. Test is necessary for assessing the effectiveness of strategies, techniques, teaching materials and methods.
SSC Level: SSC stands for Secondary School Certificate. The students of mainstream education in Bangladesh sit for this public examination after completing ten years at school. Generally class nine and ten are considered as SSC level. The SSC level has also been termed as Bangla/Bengali Medium in this research.
O Level: O level stands for Ordinary Level, which is equivalent to SSC level of Bangladesh. At the O level two systems are running side by side in Bangladesh; one is EDEXCEL General Certificate Examination (GCE O Level) run by London University, and the other is Cambridge O Level System, which is run by Cambridge University. The British Council conducts the examinations and sends scripts to the respective universities.
They have individual syllabuses and these two streams are said to be enjoying international standard.